Curling Ice King Hospitalized

Sad news out of Trenton, Ontario that legendary curling ice maestro Shorty Jenkins is in hospital, with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease now confirmed.

In this 2007 photo by David Rollins, above, Shorty is seen whooping it up – or being whooped up, it would seem - with his squad at the Heart to Heart Charity Bonspiel in Sudbury.

“He has all these secrets about icemaking he’s never told anyone,” remarked Jo-Ann Rizzo, who skipped a squad at the last Canadian Olympic Trials and happens to be Shorty’s niece.

“He taught Dave Merklinger, for example, as much as he thought Dave should know, but not everything. He’s going to take many secrets to the grave.

“Somebody should sit with him and write a book. He’s had such an interesting life.”

Actually, there is a full chapter on Shorty in the 2007 book The Roaring Game: A Sweeping Saga of Curling. An essential part of any curling fan’s library, you can read a review – a shameless endorsement, really – on this archived page.

Author Doug Clark briefly traces the life of “The King of Swing” from when he asked his parents if he could leave and join his brothers at an orphanage – he was nine years old – to his air force career and eventually his life as a curling rock star; immortalized in the national Curling Hall of Fame, in a legendary Tim Hortons TV commercial, and in a cameo appearance in the film Men With Brooms.

He’s even got a World Curling Tour cashspiel named after him, which at one time boasted pink house rings – but of course.

“Shorty was a huge part of my enjoyment in writing the book,” said Clark.

“When he started talking about his life story, I knew this was the closest I could get to a biography of a classic Canadian character in just one chapter.

“Even if you don’t love curling, you’ve gotta love Shorty Jenkins.”

Jenkins is expected to return home from hospital in the next two weeks. On some days, he is unaware of his condition – short-term memory being one of the first things at risk with this progressive disease.

“We are really not sure what the near future holds, unfortunately we do know what the distant future will be,” wrote Rizzo in an email to friends.

And so, curling fans who want to send best wishes to Shorty and his wife Johanna are encouraged to do via:

183 Reid St.
Trenton, Ontario
K8V 5W4


“A curling rock is smarter than a human being.”
– Shorty Jenkins

The Sweeping Saga of Curling

Doug Clark is a talented writer – and very unassuming curler – from North Gower, Ontario, just outside of Ottawa. His work has appeared in The Globe and Mail and Maclean’s, amongst other places, and his 2002 book Dark Paths, Cold Trails was shortlisted for Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for non-fiction.

Clark’s new book is all-curling, and in a big way. The Roaring Game: A Sweeping Saga of Curling has been published by Key Porter Books and is in bookstores now (also online here). It also gets a glowing five-star review from us, The Curling News.

Indeed, we need to acknowledge some bias here, as TCN Editor George Karrys has been following Clark’s stubborn and determined progress in getting this thing published – more on that in a moment – for years; in fact, he also wrote the forward.

An excerpt:

I still remember the day Doug dared to share his manuscript with me. After a voracious marathon read, I felt dizzy. The scope of Clark’s vision, the sheer size of the curling landscape he painted, was one of a kind. The book wasn’t about a famous athlete or a specific championship, nor a how-to guide, and not a purely historical tome. It was all that and so much more, delightfully bobbing and weaving among virtually every nuance of curling. This had never been done before.

Never before. True, Scott Russell (of CBC-TV fame) wrote a curling book of heartwarming grass roots stories. Doug Maxwell’s final two books were a) a fine summary piece and b) a long-awaited personal history. There have been countless how-to books for the hard-core curler, from Ken Watson to Paul Savage to Ed Lukowich, and now Colleen Jones. An ex-Toronto Sun sports writer named Jean Sonmor wrote a legendary tome about the men who competed at the highest levels (in the era of the 1970s and 80s). No less than nine – that’s right, nine – curling books were released last year. The Black Book’s attention to curling detail – including the statistical mathematics of the sport – are apt to cause dizzy spells (it’s coming, again, by the way). Even Warren Hansen has written an oversized “coffee table book” on the sport.

But nobody has ever thrown all that – and more – into a single piece of work. The ultimate, all-encompassing look at curling, spotlighting all that makes it resonate with the people. It’s all here: fun and fascination, humour, cleverness, Canada-USA-world, the stars, the unknown heroes, charity and celebrity, disabled and able-bodied, the glorious, historical past and the pop-culture present.

Regarding Clark’s stubborn zeal... here’s another excerpt from the forward, which also explains why this book deserves to sit on your shelf, and also that of friends and family.

Clark seems the epitome of a curler. He’s been trying to publish this book for years (curlers are a notoriously stubborn breed); he’s embraced and then broken up with two previous publishers (curlers are wont to change their team lineups as much as any freewheeling pro sport GM); and he tells simply wonderful stories (just park yourself at a table after a curling game and listen to the tales).

It must be said that the loving care this man has taken with our sport – in prose – means as much as the commitment shown by thousands of curling fans, players, administrators and volunteers on a daily basis.

Here’s the Key Porter page again, and the Chapters/Indigo page, too. Canadian readers are urged, as always, to choose Canadian retail sites – .ca as opposed to .com – to support your homegrown talent, and have your purchasing power count when the sales are tallied.